Illusion Fall
by Jander Panell
Summary: If Riku can't have Sora, he'll settle for second best...but is Zexion really second in his heart?  Riku/Zexion, onesided SoRiku, SoKai.  Explicit content and buckets and buckets of angst.  Not 3D compliant.


**Illusion Fall**

A fanfic from me! Impossible! Then again, I only wrote this because I was stuck on my novel. Sigh...writing just doesn't come as easily to me anymore; it feels like pulling out teeth. Hopefully, this phase will soon pass.

If you remember, I wrote a prologue to a Riku/Zexion fic a while ago, but I never got around to actually writing the story and probably never will. Oh well! But you get this, which includes a lot of the themes and concepts that I intended to include in that story. Yeah, Riku/Zexion is an amazing pairing and more people need to write it! So I'm doing my part in representing this pairing! Hoo-ah!

The song for this fic is "Every You Every Me" by Placebo. Because it's emo like that. Because Riku.

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><p><em>This is wrong.<em>

He tells himself these words, every time. Every time when he steps into the Secret Place and sees Sora leaning against the wall, waiting for him with such inviting smile, but it's not right - it's not a warm, sunny smile like Riku sees on Sora's face all the time, but a smile with a narrow edge, a hint of mocking...

Riku doesn't care. His blood thuds in his ears, drowning out even the violent pounding of his heart, and he steps forward and takes it. Takes what Zexion offers, because -

Because it's the closest to Sora he'll ever be, and he knows it.

How long has been doing this? Weeks? Months? Riku no longer remembers. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday when he encountered the Nobody on the beach that fateful night, the night when Riku realized that the peaceful life he'd been leading for the past two years was just a lie - that everything he and Sora had fought and sacrificed for was ultimately for nothing. Because they hadn't destroyed the Organization. One of them was still alive.

Zexion.

Riku knows he should have killed Zexion. It's the right thing to do, and more than that, it's what he _wants _to do. Yeah, that's right. He wants to kill that bastard who put him through that hellish facsimile of his home back in Castle Oblivion. But it's not so simple. Nothing is.

_"You desire Sora? Then I can _be _Sora for you."_

Sometimes Riku wonders why Zexion does this. What's in it for him? Base survival, probably. He knows Riku's stronger than him. Knows that _Sora _is. If Sora ever finds out that Zexion is present on the islands...well, Zexion will end up even more nonexistent than he already is.

Anyway, it doesn't matter to Riku. All that matter is what's here and now. The small, slim body pressed beneath his, grinding into the stone wall; the hands threading through his hair, tugging so hard his scalp burns; the wild, breathy moans in that voice that sounds _exactly _like Sora's but isn't...

It feels wonderful, for sure, because this is what Riku has always wanted. Oh, how many hours has he spent fantasizing? In his bathroom or bedroom, mostly, or in his most embarrassed moments, in the Secret Place itself. The place where that mocking chalk portrait yawns at him. Mocking him just like Sora and Kairi do during the day - but of course, they don't _mean _to mock him. Of course not. They would never be that cruel to him, and he knows he ought to be grateful that they still consider him their closest friend after all the shit he's put them through, but it still rankles so much. To see them hold hands, twining their fingers so tightly together he sometimes has trouble telling whose are whose. Or smaller, sillier things: sharing one ice cream bar between them, giggling and remonstrating him when he sardonically points out that it's unhygienic, and their giggles just sound so damn _similar_; casually touching each other's faces, resting hands on each other's elbows, in an easy, natural way that makes Riku ache inside; and the sheer happiness in Sora's eyes when he's with Kairi. He never looks at Riku like that. He looks at Riku with love, with joy, but it's completely different than it is with Kairi.

And it hurts so damn bad and who the hell can blame Riku for taking second best? A mere illusion.

But he knows it isn't real, no matter how much Zexion may look or sound like Sora. At first, the illusion was _almost _perfect - or maybe Riku's just viewing his memories through rose-tinted glasses, yeah, because that's the way he is. He thinks about the first few times, fucking Sora - no, Zexion, but who can blame him if he thinks of it as _Sora _- on the floor of the Secret Place, and staring into those beautiful blue eyes clouded with pleasure and hearing Sora's voice cry his name. And in his memories, the voice is indisputably Sora's, bright and clear and overflowing with emotion.

Every time after that, after that miraculous first time in which Zexion first made his offer, feels a little bit...less. Less like Sora. That first time, Sora grinned at him, that heartbreaking and smile, and said cheerfully, with no hint of guile or teasing because that's the way Sora is, so painfully honest, "Come on, Riku? What are you waiting for?" Riku holds on to that memory, pathetic as it is, because he can't remember Sora-Zexion-_Sora _sounding anything like that anytime since. The voice sounds outwardly like Sora's, it's the same pitch and timbre, but it holds a sharp edge, an insidious layer like black velvet.

"Well, Riku? Ready to have your fill of me?"

And when he says those words Riku just wants to grab him and _throttle _him but he can't because it's Sora but it's not Sora even though it looks exactly like Sora and he decides fuck it, who cares if the voice and words aren't right, as long as the body is? The body at least is just like Sora's - Zexion's illusions are uncannily accurate. The same sun-tanned skin, wiry build, mess of spiky hair and those eyes. As blue as the sky for which Sora is named.

He won't let go of that, he absolutely refuses to. _This is Sora, _he tells himself with a growl while he pounds harder into Zexion, hears Zexion's moans become wilder and more ragged. Never mind that the voice no longer sounds a thing like Sora's. It's a hatefully familiar voice, a voice that still haunts his nightmares after all this time. _Surely you must have known this was going to happen..._You _destroyed your home! Look at what you _truly _are!_

Except it's different. Not as smooth and seductive, no longer slick as quicksilver. "_Riku," _Zexion cries, and he says nothing else, just Riku's name. A desperate refrain. And it makes Riku madder because each time, each time the name escapes his lips, he feels a desperate longing jolt in his gut and wishes with all his heart that it's Sora's voice saying his name.

He bites down on the hollow where Zexion's neck meets his shoulder, trying to ignore how cool the skin feels beneath his lips, how the body beneath him is no longer suntanned and wiry, but pale as death and unhealthily skinny. Trying to ignore the strands of bluish hair that sometimes brush his cheeks.

The frustration winds to a fever pitch inside him. He trembles, feels like he's about to break. Not enough, it's never enough, never _never never NEVER _- and he slams Zexion into the wall hard enough for Zexion to gasp in pain and clamps him tight and comes inside him. Zexion quivers, then goes slack. There is an answering gush of liquid, but it feels so light and insubstantial, barely there. Just like Zexion himself.

He fucked Zexion to near-incoherence against the wall, the same wall on which Sora drew that picture of him and Kairi, and a tiny part of Riku feels vindictive pleasure at that thought, but he's tired of being vindictive, sick and tired of the darker part of his thoughts and feelings that never, _never _leave him alone. He pulls away, staggering on numbed legs. Feels small and pathetic.

And always, Zexion lifts his head. Smirks. Riku stares at the Nobody - the _boy, _really, because he's now smaller than Riku (so strange; in his nightmares Zexion is always a towering shadow) - and thinks about how Zexion looks absolutely nothing like Sora, may in fact be Sora's perfect opposite. Pale as ice and death. Weak in build. Eyes as dark as midnight, as deep water. A person who lives in shadows, behind locked doors, instead out on the sandy beaches and in the sunlight, like Sora.

And it makes Riku sick to the _stomach _because he looks upon Zexion adn he thinks that Zexion is so beautiful, in the worst possible way. Delicate beauty, the kind of beauty that you can smash if you squeeze hard enough. If you treat it violently enough. Sora's beauty is healthy and, like the sun, casts its warm light upon everyone. No one can destroy it.

_And that is why you prefer him, _a voice that sounds too much like Zexion's whispers in his head. _Because you can break him. You can hurt him like you can never hurt Sora._

_And that's why you never tell him to work harder at the illusion. To make it more convincing. Because somewhere deep inside that dark heart of yours, you truly _want _him._

Riku shakes his head to clear it, to deny these horrible thoughts.

"Did you enjoy it?" Zexion's voice is harsh, rasping, but alive with triumph. It makes Riku's skin crawl.

"Fuck off," Riku says, and turns his back on Zexion.

"The things you desire are only illusions," Zexion says.

"I know that," Riku snaps. He steps out of the cave and faces the warm seaside night. Once, he took solace in the gentle lapping of the sea on the sand, but now it just drags at his heart. Makes him all too aware of his own darkness. Of that shore where he thought he and Sora would be trapped forever, and the worst thing was that he had not wanted that to end. Had not truly wanted to go home, because he knew it meant losing Sora.

"They're just illusions," he says, louder this time. "But they're enough for me."

Zexion chuckles, a soft sound without any humor - and how can there be? He cannot feel. "Riku, you were always so good at lying to yourself. I don't even have to do it for you."

And because he is speaking the truth - because Zexion _doesn't _lie, that's the worst thing; everything he ever said to Riku has been the truth and Riku knows that deep down - Riku doesn't get angry. Doesn't yell at him to shut up. Just faces the ocean and says nothing and feels cold sweat prick his skin, despite the heat in the air, and he thinks that the reason he is drawn to Zexion is because, like it or not, he is more like Zexion than he ever was like Sora.

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><p>Well...that ended up much angstier than I expected. And not nearly as sexy. :( Oh well, it was interesting nonetheless.<p>

I'm definitely interested in exploring the Riku/Zexion dynamic further, because come on, not much of it actually showed up in this fic (which was mostly Riku angsting), so maybe one day I will actually write that longfic. Not likely. Got a novel to write! And classes and shit.

Please do review! This pairing is in dire need of some lovin', I say.


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